All posts by n8rngtd.top

New Zealand duo keep doing a job for their side

Sampath Bandarupalli24-Jun-2022482 Runs by Daryl Mitchell in this series so far, the highest for any New Zealand batter in a Test series against England. Martin Donnelly’s 462 runs were the previous highest during a four-match series in England in 1949.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 Number of New Zealand players with more runs while batting at No.5 and lower in a Test series than Mitchell’s 482 runs. Brendon McCullum amassed 535 runs in the two-match series against India in 2014, including a triple century and a double ton.5 Number of visiting players before Mitchell to score hundreds in three or more consecutive Tests in England. The last of the previous five batters was Rahul Dravid during India’s tour of England in 2002. Mitchell is also the first New Zealand batter to score hundreds in three successive Tests in England.

Conditions have been challenging for batters in Australia, but the fielders haven’t always supported the bowlers

S Rajesh31-Oct-2022With the fast bowlers getting the ball to bounce, swing and seam at almost all the venues, the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia hasn’t been all fun and games for the batters. The average runs per wicket in this tournament so far – after 31 matches – is 20.40, while the run rate is 7.30 per over. Both are the lowest among the eight editions so far.

Bowlers need a margin for error when they have to deal with a wet ball and India’s top order gave them just that

Hemant Brar10-Jan-20231:08

Jaffer pleased with India’s aggressive batting approach

“Yesterday when we were training, the ground was flooded with dew,” Rohit Sharma said after India lost the toss in the first ODI against in Guwahati. As Sri Lanka opted to bowl, India knew the dew in the second half was going to present as big a challenge to their bowlers as the opposition batters. They knew 300 was not going to be enough; they needed something in excess of 350.Before today, the Barsapara Cricket Stadium had hosted just one ODI: India vs West Indies in 2018. Batting first, West Indies had scored 322 for 8, and India chased it down in 42.1 overs. That further dictated the need for every Indian batter show positive intent right from the start.And that’s what they did.

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WATCH the first India vs Sri Lanka ODI full replay

The first four balls of India’s innings were dots. On the fifth, Rohit got them off the mark with an off-driven four. And, there was no looking back.Dilshan Madushanka found swing with the new ball but for some reason pulled his length back just after one over. In that, he ended up bowling short and wide. Shubman Gill took advantage of it, cutting him for three successive fours.Gill is not among the fastest starters even in T20Is, but here he swiftly moved to 20 off 10 balls. Later in the innings, he hit a hat-trick of fours against left-arm spinner Dunith Wellalage as well.At the other end, Rohit pulled a short ball from Kasun Rajitha for a six, which you would expect him to do any day of the week. However, two balls later, he skipped down the track and, despite Rajitha pitching it short, went ahead with yet another pull for another six.Rohit and Gill, opening only for the second time in ODI cricket, added 143 in 19.4 overs. The platform was set for Virat Kohli to play himself in, but he chose not to.Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill set India up for a tall total•Associated PressKohli was just six balls into his innings when he gave Dasun Shanaka the charge and flicked him through midwicket for four. He fell in the 49th over after scoring 113 off 87 balls. It felt like he was playing the anchor’s role but still struck at 129.88.During the innings break, Kohli revealed that was part of the plan: “I kind of had to bat through the innings, like I usually do in one-day cricket, but still keeping my strike rate in check [high], because we needed to get a big score as the dew is going to be a factor. I am just happy I was able to play with the tempo of the game and make sure that we got not just 340 but 370-plus.”Related

• Ashwin wants World Cup matches to start early to minimise dew factor

• Silverwood: 'Our discipline in first ten overs was lacking at times'

• Kohli's 45th ODI hundred powers India to victory

• Kohli: 'The game remains simple, desperation doesn't get you anywhere'

• Rohit withdraws appeal for Shanaka's run-out at non-striker's end

Apart from some wayward bowling and a placid surface – though some balls came slower off it, making it difficult to time – India were also helped by poor fielding. Sri Lanka dropped Kohli twice, on 52 and 81. There were a few misfields too.Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul too played quick hands, scoring 28 off 24 and 39 off 29 respectively. In fact, all of India’s top six had strike rates above 110. It was only the third time in ODI cricket that a team’s top six achieved that.What makes India’s effort even more remarkable was the fact they were playing with a long tail – Axar Patel was slotted at No. 7, followed by four bowlers. Perhaps that’s why they held back a little when Iyer got out in the 30th over. For the next 34 balls, there was no boundary.Once Rahul ended the drought with a four in the 35th over, the next five overs saw six fours and two sixes. And even though India managed only 79 in the last ten, and 17 in the last three, the intent shown earlier meant they finished with 373 for 7, which proved to be 67 too many for Sri Lanka.Both Rohit and Kohli had also spoken about how a big total would give their bowlers the cushion to try out how they want to bowl with a wet ball. That was in preparation for the upcoming ODI World Cup, which is to be played in India. But with the anti-dew spray seemingly doing its job, they were forced to wait for the next opportunity.

It’s not just the home advantage. Ashwin has constantly added new layers to his skillset right through his career

Karthik Krishnaswamy11-Feb-20232:53

Can Warner overcome the Ashwin challenge?

Australia’s offspinners took eight wickets in Nagpur. So did R Ashwin.But where Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy bowled a combined 96 overs to take those eight wickets, Ashwin took his in a mere 27.5 overs.In strike-rate terms, that’s a wicket every 72 balls versus a wicket every 21 balls.Related

• Lyon's apprentice Murphy tops his master in the rough of Nagpur

• Jadeja, Rohit, Ashwin lead India to resounding innings win

• 'Be unorthodox, use your feet, get to the pitch of the ball' – Rohit on how to play spin in India

• Stats – Australia hit record low, Ashwin at par with Kumble

It may have deteriorated over time and become especially challenging to bat on by the time Australia began their second innings, but Lyon, Murphy and Ashwin bowled on the same pitch. Why, then, did Ashwin look so devastating, and Australia’s offspinners so much more manageable?Home advantage is a big part of the answer, of course. Ashwin knew the conditions intimately, and had a feel for them. Where Australia’s spinners had a broad idea of how they needed to bowl on Indian pitches, Ashwin was able to quickly figure out how to bowl on Indian pitch, and quickly make the granular adjustments he needed to make, having played on others similar to this during his previous 51 Tests and 94 first-class games in India.Lyon, meanwhile, was playing his eighth Test and 10th first-class game in India, and Murphy was making his maiden first-class appearance in the country.On Saturday, Ashwin made a visible effort to bowl full and invite drives from the Australian batters. It was clear right from the first over he bowled, when Usman Khawaja drove a half-volley for four, and edged to slip three balls later when Ashwin got a similar-looking ball to dip on him and turn viciously.After the match, India’s ex-head coach Ravi Shastri quizzed Ashwin about the fuller lengths on Star Sports.”Ravi , I thought this wicket was pretty slow,” Ashwin said. “Like I’ve been saying all through this Test match, the wicket has been really slow and you need to get the batsmen driving on this. [It’s] not one of those pitches where you might get the gloves ripping up to short leg and silly point.”So I thought giving them one or two balls to drive was a good way for me to lure them into shots, and probably induce the other half of the bat as well. So I just felt this was one of those pitches, because of the carry and the bounce that seemed to be a little low.”The intention to lure batters into drives was evident in Ashwin’s fields as well. To David Warner, for instance, he pulled his mid-off two-thirds of the way back to the boundary, signalling that a pushed or driven single was available to him if he wanted it. By inviting Warner to look for that single, Ashwin hoped to draw his bat away from his body and increase his chances of being beaten on either edge.Ashwin had to bowl fuller to be able to draw these errors, but he also had the luxury of a big India lead, which allowed him to pay the price of the odd half-volley while looking to hit that dangerous area just short of a driving length.R Ashwin became the fastest Indian to 450 Test wickets`•BCCIIt wasn’t as if Australia’s offspinners hadn’t tried to bowl full. They did, and Rohit Sharma drove Lyon for three fours through the off side during the final session of day one. But Australia had been bowled out for 177, and Lyon and Murphy didn’t have the cushion of runs that would have allowed them to keep trying that attacking length. On day two, they plugged away on a good length and were part of a collectively disciplined Australian display that at one stage threatened to keep India to a manageable lead.It didn’t happen, but Australia’s choices with the ball were forced on them by their low total, and their spinners tried to make the best of what they had to play with.But there was something slightly mechanical about how Lyon and Murphy plugged away as well, as if they were following an instruction manual on how to bowl on Indian pitches. Ashwin varied his pace a lot more, even venturing into the low 80s on occasion – Lyon and Murphy seldom dropped below 90kph – and seemed to try different things against different batters. It was that feel thing again.And while Ashwin got to bowl to far more left-hand batters than his Australian counterparts, Lyon and Murphy made more of an impression on India’s right-hand batters than they did against Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel. They kept the runs down, conceding just 83 off the 253 balls they bowled to the two left-hand batters, but took just one wicket in those 253 balls.They were tiring by the time they bowled to Jadeja and especially Axar, but this was still a pitch with plenty of turn and natural variation to exploit.For all that, Murphy’s performance was one of the best by a first-timer in India – never mind a debutant – over the last decade or so. To bowl 47 overs and go at less than three an over were impressive enough feats, given he had only played seven first-class games before coming on this tour; that he took seven wickets was remarkable.Lyon, a bowler on his third Test tour of India, bowled 49 overs and took just one wicket. Of all the performances that made up Australia’s defeat in Nagpur, perhaps none would disappoint their team management as much as Lyon’s. As in his last Test match before this tour, against South Africa in Sydney, where he took two wickets in 55 overs in a rain-affected draw, his bowling commanded respect from the opposition but didn’t look like much of a wicket threat. The common thread between Sydney and Nagpur? A lack of bounce.In an era where DRS has made fingerspinners target bowled and lbw more than ever, Lyon is something of a throwback, his wicket-taking threat directly proportional to the bounce on offer. The 2016-17 tour of India was a case in point. Lyon played a largely supporting role to Steve O’Keefe in Australia’s unexpected win on a Pune dustbowl, where sharp turn and natural variation were the main threats rather than bounce, and he bowled only 46 overs to O’Keefe’s 77 – while conceding nearly a run an over more – in the drawn third Test on a slow and low surface in Ranchi.

“The reason that he’s able to extract a lot from the pitch is because of the skillset that he has. And obviously he’s a very studious guy, likes to keep working on his game, likes to understand his game and take it to the next level, that is what he is”Rohit Sharma on R Ashwin

When bounce became a factor, Lyon became an entirely different bowler.On day one in Bengaluru on that tour, the combination of early moisture in the topsoil and Mitchell Starc’s follow-through at the other end gave him footmarks to work with, and he made the ball turn and jump out of them to take eight wickets. In the fourth Test on a Dharamsala trampoline, his first-innings five-for gave Australia a genuine chance of victory before India’s lower order and bowlers snatched it away.Whenever the conditions were somewhat reminiscent of Australia, Lyon was exceedingly dangerous. On pitches where bowled and lbw were likelier modes of dismissal than bat-pad catches or edges flying to slip, his threat was greatly diminished.Lyon’s record in India reflects this duality: he has three five-fors in eight Tests, but he averages 33.31. Ashwin averages 21.78 in the eight Tests Lyon has played in India.Ashwin, meanwhile, has played 10 Tests in Australia, where he’s taken 39 wickets at 42.15. Not very impressive, you might think, but in those ten Tests, Lyon has taken 32 wickets at 42.40. Ashwin’s performances in Australia have improved with each tour, to the extent that he has outbowled Lyon on India’s last two tours in 2018-19 and 2020-21, averaging 27.50 to Lyon’s 37.83.Ashwin did this not by trying to bowl like Lyon, but by finding ways to make his own style work in Australian conditions. He has constantly added new layers to his skillset right through his career, experimenting even when the world has told him not to fix something that isn’t broken, and it’s this quality that Rohit picked out when asked, during his post-match press conference, why Ashwin was able to get so much more out of this Nagpur pitch than Australia’s offspinners.”Ash has played so much cricket in India,” Rohit said. “He’s closing in on playing 100 Test matches now, and I’m pretty sure he’s played more Test matches in India, and not to forget his first-class games as well, before he made his debut, so a lot of cricket, a lot of overs have gone into his skills, for him to do what he’s doing now.”To be able to extract something out of the pitch is not easy, unless you have that experience, and having that idea as to what you need to bowl on certain kind of pitches – and obviously he’s got so much skill as well. He can bowl that carrom ball, he can bowl that slider, that topspinner as well, the guy’s got everything.”The reason that he’s able to extract a lot from the pitch is because of the skillset that he has. And obviously he’s a very studious guy, likes to keep working on his game, likes to understand his game and take it to the next level, that is what he is.”If you see him, he’s getting better and better as you see him every time. He looks a different bowler, looks – I wouldn’t say improved bowler, because he was always a good bowler – but he looks a different bowler every time he plays Test cricket. That is what good cricketers do, they try and up their game and try and reach that next level.”Lyon has done this too, of course. He is a far, far better bowler in Indian conditions now than the one MS Dhoni tonked around the park a decade ago in Chennai. But where Lyon is now a better version of the same bowler, more or less, the Ashwin of 2023 is unrecognisably different to the bowler who dominated that 2012-13 series. This, in essence, is what separates them.

With a blend of composure, calmness, skills and courage, he once again helped the side live to fight another day

Nagraj Gollapudi09-Jun-20232:24

The technical changes that have brought Rahane success

After he pulled Pat Cummins for a six to bring up his half-century, Ajinkya Rahane kept his helmet-covered head bowed. The moment lasted barely a few seconds, but it was poignant. In that instance, Rahane probably told himself whatever he had been doing since being dropped from the Indian Test side in January 2022 was worth it.Since then Rahane has been telling himself, and us, to be in the moment. And that nothing else matters. Whether he has featured in 80-plus Tests, led India with distinction whenever the opportunity arose, or played some great knocks over the years. Or that he was grinding it out for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, or scoring runs at a breakneck speed for Chennai Super Kings in their recent IPL triumph. None of that matters.Rahane has played his cricket away from the spotlight, but quietly he has managed to do extraordinary things. If not for him, India might not have won the 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia. After India were bundled out for 36 in the first Test in Adelaide, he quietly took over the captaincy from Virat Kohli, who returned to India for the birth of his daughter. In the second Test, in Melbourne, Rahane scored one of the best centuries in Test history to help India level the series.Related

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• Postcard from a morning in hell: Boland and Cummins unleash on India

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• Cummins finds the going tough after shoddy no-ball display

But when Rishabh Pant hit the winning runs in Brisbane to help India win the series 2-1, and virtually every Indian player charged onto the field to celebrate, Rahane stayed behind the boundary line. The Mumbai school of cricket has ingrained in him to not be loud in celebration, instead let his bat make all the noise.On Thursday, even before he walked in with India reeling at 50 for 3 in response to Australia’s 469 in the World Test Championship final at The Oval, Rahane would have blanked out all the emotions. It didn’t matter to him how he found his way back into the side after nearly an 18-month absence. His shirt number was the same. His batting position was the same. And his role was the same. Moreover, to bat with the team in troubled waters was also familiar territory.”You can be the hero if you stay in the moment,” Ajinkya Rahane seems to be telling himself•ICC/Getty ImagesImmediately upon arrival, Rahane faced an incisive spell from Cummins, including one of the best deliveries of the match. Pitching around fourth stump, on the fuller side of the good-length band, the ball seamed in. Rahane, who was rooted in his crease, was forced to play but the ball straightened just a wee bit to beat his outside edge and rap him on the back thigh. It was in line with off stump, and umpire Richard Illingworth didn’t hesitate in raising his finger. But Cummins had overstepped.The Australia captain pitched the next ball on an almost identical spot. On this occasion, the ball moved in sharply to jab Rahane’s right index finger, which had to be taped.The four earlier in the over was already a distant memory. It had taken him to 17, where Rahane would stay stuck for 23 balls. But he was not worried. After facing the white Kookaburra for two months in the IPL, and adjusting to the varying lengths, uneven bounce and relentless questions from Cummins, Scott Boland, Cameron Green and Mitchell Starc was part of the joy of Test cricket.The striking feature of Rahane’s innings on day two was that he never looked in a rush or ruffled. But on Friday, he did ensure that the scoreboard kept ticking. The boundaries came via the skillfully carved out steers between gully and point, and the punched drives off the front foot through covers.On a testing pitch against a high-quality attack mistakes were bound to happen, but luck was Rahane’s pal more than once. On 72, he played away from his body at a full ball on fifth stump from Cummins; the outside edge, though, was spilled by David Warner, who possibly was distracted by Alex Carey’s movement.It did not bother Rahane. When Nathan Lyon came on to bowl about 20 minutes before lunch, he skipped out of his crease to drive the offspinner through cover-point for four. The pace at which Rahane and Shardul Thakur were scoring started to bother Australia, and the attacking field of the morning changed with fielders pushed deep.No pain, no gain: Rahane gets his finger taped after taking a blow from Cummins•Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty ImagesA century on comeback was rudely denied by the catch of the Test by Green at gully, but Rahane did not bite his lip. He had done his job admirably: not only did he prove his worth again, that he was still capable of pulling the team out of a spot of bother on difficult pitches, but he also helped Thakur stay at the crease despite the latter being peppered by the seamers.Thakur, who was also making a comeback having played his previous Test last July against England, said that Rahane had told him the one way they could rebuild the innings was by giving feedback to each other on Australia’s bowling plans. Rahane told Thakur to quickly point it out if he committed any mistake.It is this down-to-earth nature of Rahane, his willingness to learn and treat everyone as an equal, is what earns him the respect of his peers and former greats. That is what makes him a hero for youngsters.And that respect is what drives Rahane to do some amazing stuff. On the 2018 tour of South Africa, Rahane had been dropped for the first two Tests of the three-match series, which India lost. Rahane would reveal later that he was “hurt” and “disappointed” but when told by the team management that he would play the final Test in Johannesburg, he told himself it was the “best opportunity to become a hero”. Rahane scored 48, the highest contribution in India’s second innings on a pitch which the ICC would rate poor because of dangerous bounce. He himself likened it to a century as South Arica lost by 63 runs chasing 241.Probably, that’s what Rahane was telling himself after his fifty on Friday morning: “You can be the hero if you stay in the moment.” His innings was a blend of composure, calmness, skills and courage.The challenge for him and the reason for being dropped remain the same – can he score the big runs consistently? But that’s a question for another day. For now, he is the reason India still have some hope of drawing, or even winning, this Test.

And how many bowlers have taken hat-tricks as well as been victims of one?

Steven Lynch29-Aug-2023Stuart Broad took a hat-trick in a Test, and was also a victim in one. How many others have been on both sides of a hat-trick? asked Abhishek Chakravorty from India

You’re right that Stuart Broad not only claimed a Test hat-trick – in fact he took two, against India at Trent Bridge in 2011, and Sri Lanka at Headingley in 2014 – but was also part of one, as the last victim of Peter Siddle’s birthday hat-trick in Brisbane in 2010-11.Five other men have featured on both sides of a Test hat-trick: Darren Gough (England), Shane Warne (Australia), Nuwan Zoysa (Sri Lanka), Harbhajan Singh (India) and Rangana Herath (Sri Lanka). For the full list of Test hat-tricks, click here.In men’s ODIs, there are also six: Kapil Dev (India), Mohammad Sami (Pakistan), Brett Lee (Australia), Thisara Perera (Sri Lanka), Rubel Hossain (Bangladesh) and Zimbabwe’s Prosper Utseya, who was actually part of two hat-tricks as well as taking one. For the ODI list, click here.And there are two in men’s T20Is: Khalid Ahmadi of Belgium and Uganda’s Kenneth Waiswa. For that list, click here.There are no instances in women’s Tests or ODIs, but four in T20Is: by Marizanne Kapp (South Africa), Megan Schutt (Australia), Fahima Khatun (Bangladesh) and Onnicha Kamchomphu (Thailand). For that list, click here.Does the famous match at the Wanderers when South Africa scored 438 to win still hold the record for the highest aggregate in a one-day international? asked Abdurrahman Bakhsh from South Africa

On that memorable evening in Johannesburg in March 2006, Australia ran up 434 for 4, but South Africa edged past them with 438 for 9. The match aggregate of 872 runs not only remains the ODI record – next comes the 825 of India (414 for 7) vs Sri Lanka (411 for 8) in Rajkot in 2009-10 – but is still the highest in any List A (senior one-day) match. It came under threat at Trent Bridge in 2016, when the Royal London Cup game between Nottinghamshire (445 for 8) and Northamptonshire (425) featured 870 runs. In all, there have now been 11 List A games with 800 or more runs.Seven different St Lucia bowlers took a wicket in an innings in a CPL match earlier this month. Was this a record for any T20 game? asked Sandesh Acharekar from India

Seven St Lucia Kings bowlers took a wicket in their recent Caribbean Premier League match against Barbados Royals in Gros Islet – Matthew Forde grabbed three, and the six other bowlers one apiece (there was also a run-out, from the first ball of the innings). This equalled the record for senior T20 cricket: there have now been no fewer than 25 instances of seven, including five in official internationals. Earlier this year, seven Ireland bowlers took wickets as they upset Bangladesh in Chattogram.Kumar Sangakkara and Brian Lara are among eight batters to have scored a double-hundred and a hundred in the same Test•Getty ImagesDerbyshire’s Luis Reece scored a double-hundred and a century in the same game earlier this season. How often has this happened? asked Michael Edwards from… Derbyshire

Left-hander Luis Reece made 131 and added 201 not out as Derbyshire followed on against Glamorgan in Derby last month.Reece provided the 73rd instance of this double in first-class cricket, but only the second for Derbyshire, after the Australian Chris Rogers against Surrey at The Oval in 2010. The first to do it anywhere was CB Fry, with 125 and 229 for Sussex against Surrey in Hove in 1900 (the only instance before the First World War). Zaheer Abbas achieved the feat four times, all for Gloucestershire, remaining not out in all eight innings.The figure of 73 includes eight occurrences in Tests, the most recent by Marnus Labuschagne for Australia against West Indies in Perth in 2022-23, and also the two instances of a triple and a single century in the same Test – by Graham Gooch for England vs India at Lord’s in 1990, and Kumar Sangakkara for Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh in Chattogram in 2013-14.Also, in the main number are the two cases of two double-centuries in the same first-class match, by Arthur Fagg for Kent against Essex in Colchester in 1938, and Angelo Perera for Nondescripts vs Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo in 2018-19.As the World Athletics Championships are going on at the moment, I wondered if any Test cricketers had ever won medals? asked Andrew Simpson from England

By the time the World Athletics Championships began, in 1983, increased professionalism meant it was increasingly difficult for anyone to rise to the top in more than one sport, as had been relatively commonplace in earlier years. But you should never say never: I believe there is one world athletics medallist who also played a cricket Test match. Sunette Viljoen won the silver medal in the women’s javelin in Daegu in 2011, and bronze in Beijing in 2015; in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 she won an Olympic silver medal too. Before her athletics career took over, Viljoen played one Test for South Africa, against India in Paarl in 2001-02. She also played 17 one-day internationals, and featured in the 2000 World Cup. One imagines you wouldn’t have wanted to try a quick single to her in the field.There was another close connection to Test cricket in the most recent world championships. Rai Benjamin won the bronze medal in the men’s 400 metres hurdles, having won silver in the same event in 2019 and 2022; he also won silver (and a gold in the 4x400m relay) at the Tokyo Olympics. He’s the son of the former West Indian fast bowler Winston Benjamin, who played 21 Tests and 85 ODIs between 1986 and 1995.Also in Budapest, Brandon Starc – the brother of Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc – finished eighth in the men’s high jump.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions